In the wake of last year’s 7 October pogrom, and amid rapidly rising anti-Semitism, most Jews are even more convinced of the importance of the Jewish State and the need for greater solidarity. As researchers such as Tufts Eitan Hersh and others have demonstrated, the Hamas assaults have led many in America to emphatically embrace their Jewish identity.
Overall, immigration has both positive and negative effects, something rarely acknowledged by advocates on either side. An intelligent approach would try to minimize the negatives Read more
For decades, Canada won a deserved reputation as a country with a sensible immigration policy that brought in large numbers of workers, entrepreneurs and innovators. Read more
Throughout history, the happy convergence of men and women — and their by-product, children — has driven human civilisation. No less than Freud saw this need for family as intrinsic: “Eros and Ananke [love and necessity],” he writes in Civilisation and its Discontents, “have become the parents of human civilisation too.”
Age is a big deal. We saw just how big a deal it is from the deterioration of President Biden evident during the recent debate with Donald Trump. There’s a growing sense that the world is being run by a gerontocracy Read more
Elon Musk has just announced that he will move the headquarters of both SpaceX and X from California to Texas, citing Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of a new law banning parental notification by school districts of children’s gender identification changes. “The governor of California just signed a bill causing massive destruction of parental rights and putting children at risk for permanent damage,” Musk wrote on X. “If you’re a normal family living in California, get out before it’s too late,” wrote one commenter. Many state residents seem to be coming to a similar conclusion.
Californians are concerned for many reasons beyond their governor’s latest concession to the far Left. The state faces a deep budget deficit, tepid job growth, and massive net outmigration. Far from being the egalitarian paradise celebrated by Governor Newsom, it has the nation’s highest unemployment and poverty rates while being home to the most billionaires. It recently ranked last among the 50 states in terms of taxpayers’ return on investment.
Residents have lost confidence. Only 40 percent approve of the activities of state legislators. Some 62 percent told pollsters the state was headed in the wrong direction, up from 37 percent in 2020. Four in ten are considering an exit.
Governor Newsom finds himself increasingly unpopular with state voters. But are Californians ready for radical change? Are they even ready for reform?
So far, what should have been a political firestorm has been more like a series of isolated campfires. True, Republicans have rallied modestly from their 2018 nadir, picking up five House seats in the last two rounds of federal elections. But the GOP’s 12-representative total is a paltry fraction of the available 52. The next governor and future legislatures are likely to remain progressive, as three-fifths of Californians plan to vote for Democrats for Congress, and a hefty majority back President Biden’s reelection. As former GOP State Senate leader Jim Brulte once told me, “things have to get a lot worse before they can get better.”
Right now, “there’s some movement politically but not much,” says Shawn Steel, GOP national committeeman for California and husband of Representative Michelle Steel (R-CA). “People are stuck on an ideology and it’s hard to move them.”
One critical factor in California’s progressive dominance, notes Steel, has been changes in migration patterns. In the past, those who flocked to the Golden State brought diverse political views. This led the state to oscillate between progressive and conservative governance. In recent decades, however, population movement has created ideal conditions for one-party rule. Between 2000 and 2023, per census data, California has lost about 3.8 million residents in net domestic migration—a loss roughly the population of Los Angeles. Many of those leaving, according to an analysis of IRS data that I coauthored, are middle-income people in their childbearing years, a Republican-leaning cohort. And as another study showed, conservatives are three times more likely to consider leaving the state than are liberals. “Texas is taking away my voters,” laments the GOP’s Steele.
Read the rest of this piece at City Journal.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Like Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and the British, Canadians are being schooled to believe that their country is essentially a “settler” colony, whose very existence largely echoes the racist European past. Read more
For much of modern American history, the support enjoyed by the two main political parties has hewed to a particular ethnic pattern. Republicans, notes political historian Michael Barone, have largely been the party of “white Protestants,” while the Democrats have been largely “a coalition” of disparate groups: Catholic ethnics, Latinos, blacks, Jews, and working people of all races.
Today that paradigm is shattering. The Democrats have morphed into the political party dominated by the professional classes, the federal bureaucracy, and those dependent on government transfers. The Republican Party, well before Donald Trump and particularly under Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, had been gaining ground among white “ethnic” working-class voters who were once Democrats. But now the GOP is making headway with other ethnic groups, winning a significantly larger portion of the Latino vote, particularly in Florida and Texas, in 2020. Republicans also show signs of building support among Jews, who largely rejected Trump in 2016, and perhaps Asians and African Americans.
Of course, all these groups will still likely vote more for Democrats than Republicans this year, but any serious erosion in the Democrats’ traditional ethnic base could prove catastrophic for them because Republicans, notes Pew, enjoy a strong majority among whites. Many conservatives may fret about the political effect of ethnic change giving Democrats a permanent majority, but ethnic politics are clearly changing. To win over the long run, Republicans must cleave off enough minority voters as the U.S. moves towards becoming a majority-minority country by mid century.
These shifts primarily (although not solely) reflect economic changes. Certain classes are doing better, as the ranks of those working in the professions — at least until the full impact of artificial intelligence — continue to grow. Most employment growth is now concentrated in government and largely publicly funded health care, as well as low-wage service jobs. In contrast, many traditional small businesses are having to contend with an increasing regulatory burden. Overall one in four Americans fear losing their job in the next year.
The current economic divide between the professional urban class and most Americans of any race is enormous. These elites are thriving economically, but the working class is doing less well, and are far less supportive of Joe Biden. Recent polling suggests that even young people are shifting away from the president, who won their votes easily in 2020, and towards Trump. Media accounts may link this to the Gaza war, but polling shows that when asked what concerns them most young people say economic issues by a wide margin.
Minorities make up over 40 percent of the nation’s working class and by 2032 will constitute its majority. Latinos are (taken as a whole) the largest single group within this category, and by 2050 their numbers are expected to account for 30 percent of the overall population, more than twice the black share. Latinos, of course, vary by class and heritage. Some, such as Puerto Ricans, remain overwhelmingly Democratic, while Cubans veer to the GOP. Mexicans, the largest group, are often divided by class and degree of religious commitment, whether Catholic or evangelical.
Republican support among Hispanic voters has grown by ten points since 2018, and Trump now polls close to even. In recent elections, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden won roughly 70 percent of the Latino vote. Currently, it seems likely Trump will do better in 2024, helped by the Democrats’ sharp turn toward cultural progressivism, which is at odds with the more conservative social views held by many Latinos.
But economics are also likely to push Latinos towards the Republicans. Concerns about competition with newly arrived immigrant low-wage labor and fears of crime are leading more Latinos to favor stronger border restrictions. Forty-five percent, according to one April poll, even favor mass deportations. These sentiments are most common in areas such as south Texas, a formerly strongly Democratic area that has shifted towards the GOP, where most Hispanics, according to one survey, favor Governor Abbott’s anti-migration agenda over the Biden administration’s border approach.
At the same time, the current influx of largely poor, barely educated immigrants forces less skilled immigrants to compete with already struggling working-class citizens; the Congressional Budget Office warns that the recent “surge in immigration,” much of it undocumented, could lower average wages, since many of the new workers are low-skilled. In addition, roughly half of all Latinos, notes Pew, associate the current influx with increased crime.
Democratic policies, both in Washington and states like California, are also becoming increasingly inimical to upward mobility — as symbolized by owning a house, gaining a decent income, and living in safe neighborhoods. In a recent report done by the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, we found that Californian Hispanics, roughly 40 percent of the state’s population, do considerably worse in terms of economic and educational achievement than their counterparts in right-leaning states such as Texas and Florida.
Latinos are particularly threatened by the climate-change polices that are now a central part of Democratic Party dogma. Latinos, notes Chapman report author Soledad Ursúa, are deeply involved with the “carbon economy,” in which energy reliability tends to be critical. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Latino workers account for approximately 20 percent of the transportation industry’s workforce, over 22 percent of all manufacturing workers, and a third of all construction workers. According to a 2020 study from the Urban Reform Institute that I co-authored, Latino real incomes, adjusted by cost of living, are far lower in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, or San Francisco than in Atlanta, Dallas, or Phoenix.
Democrats usually win something close to 70 percent of the Jewish vote. The increasingly anti-Zionist and antisemitic character of radical progressive politics — even before the October 7 attacks — seems likely to push Jews rightwards. In California, the new social-studies curriculum categorizes all whites, including Jews and other historically discriminated against groups like Irish Catholics, as enjoying untrammeled “white privilege.”
The primarily left-wing antisemitic surge has created the basis for an enormous battle within the Democratic Party, in part directed against anti-Israel Democrats as well as Biden’s inconsistent and sometimes hostile stance on Israel. Mainstream Democratic Jews are also mobilizing to fight vehemently anti-Israel progressives, such as Representative Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), in primary elections.
In their desire to appeal to (or at least not antagonize) voters who appear to be taking Hamas’s view of the conflict, Democrats should realize that in the U.S. there are well over twice as many Jews as Muslims. In 2020 Trump, according to some estimates, gained almost a third of the Jewish vote, a six-point increase from 2016. April 2024 Economist study saw 37 percent of Jewish voters favoring Trump. A Siena poll taken two months before suggested Trump had taken a lead among New York’s large Jewish population. Looking at swing states, Jews constitute 3 percent of Pennsylvania’s electorate, and represent significant blocs in both Arizona and Nevada.
Although less influential in politics, Asians are now the fastest growing racial group in the electorate. Like Jews, Asians have fallen under progressive attack for being too successful. Asian Americans have the highest per-capita income, lowest per-capita crime rates, and highest rates of college education of any racial group. Foreign-born workers, overwhelmingly from Asia, make up a remarkable three quarters of all of Silicon Valley’s tech workforce.
Although there is certainly poverty and increasing inequality, particularly among the elderly and recent immigrants, household income among Asians stands at over $100,000, compared to $71,000 for whites and $45,000 for African Americans. There are also substantial gaps between the most successful Asian groups, such as Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and Koreans, and less successful ones, such as the Hmong and Burmese.
Overall the Asian share of “new entrepreneurs” (people starting businesses), notes the Kaufman Foundation, has more than doubled since 2000. Widely successful and family oriented, most Asians would seem a natural constituency for Republicans, certainly on economic grounds. But that has not been the case.
In 2000 over 40 percent of Asians voted for George W. Bush, but by 2008 that had dropped to 35 percent, and in 2016 it fell to 27 percent. But their Democratic affiliation is now threatened by progressive ideas, particularly around affirmative action.
There’s clearly an “Asian penalty” in applying for college: According to research from Princeton University, students who identify as Asian must score 140 points higher on the SAT than whites and 450 points higher than blacks to have the same chance of admission to private colleges. Pressure to enforce “diversity” rules on colleges and universities has intensified under the Biden administration.
In 2020, Asian support for Trump rose from 27 percent in 2016 to 31 percent. Since then, Asian voters in California have broken with the Democratic party line by voting in a ballot initiative against race-based admissions in 2021. In Orange County, which Biden won comfortably, the affirmative-action measure lost two to one, and two Korean-American women replaced Democratic representatives. In San Francisco, Asian voters, alarmed by the crime wave, played an outsized role in recalling San Francisco’s progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin as well as radical members of the city’s school board. These views are not restricted to California. According to a 2023 Pew survey, three-quarters of all Asian adults (76 percent) say race or ethnicity should not factor into college admissions decisions.
No group has been more reliably Democratic than African Americans. President Biden in particular owes his presidency to black voters, notably in the Democratic primary in South Carolina. Biden has gone out of his way to press affirmative action and other policies that openly favor African Americans. Despite this, Biden seems to be losing some support. In 2020 Trump grew his share of black voters from 8 to 12 percent; this year he is polling closer to 20 percent.
A significant part of the black electorate is also socially conservative, owing to the powerful role of theologically conservative evangelical churches. Blacks also mostly do not favor defunding the police, even as these policies are pushed in their name (one 2022 poll showed that more would support increasing than cutting funding). In New York the African-American community threw its support behind a former cop, Eric Adams, for mayor. Minority voters have also backed more moderate candidates in Buffalo and Seattle.
But the economy remains the key issue, as blacks under Bidenomics have stagnated both in income or wealth. Barely half of black voters approve of his performance, and it’s younger blacks who are moving right, with almost 30 percent leaning Republican. This is a dangerous trend for Democrats in the future. Biden will no doubt win at least three quarters of black voters, but the dam has certainly been breached.
For the most part these shifts bode well for Republicans. Yet the GOP still needs to overcome its longstanding identity as the party of white Protestantism, particularly the association with what some describe as Christian nationalism. The reality is that the days of winning as a white political party, much less a Protestant one, are clearly over.
Successful political parties need to embrace what the Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal called “the American creed” — an abiding sense that every individual, regardless of circumstances, deserves fairness and the opportunity to realize unlimited potential. This fits into the grassroots reality that America is becoming a more racially mixed nation. Re-segregation may appeal to racialist radicals, but the fastest growing race in America is mixed; one in ten babies have one white and one non-white parent.
Of course, the embrace of a diverse, mixed-race America should come naturally to traditional Democrats. But if progressives win control of more of the party, as is likely to occur given the radicalism of the current crop of Democratic activists, it will increasingly stand for an unpopular agenda that embraces lax law enforcement, demonizes Israel, and backs radical gender and race policies. That would offer the GOP an obvious opportunity to win elections in an increasingly diverse America.
This piece first appeared at National Review.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Marshall Toplansky is a widely published and award-winning marketing professional and successful entrepreneur. He co-founded KPMG’s data & analytics center of excellence and now teaches and consults corporations on their analytics strategies.
Homepage photo: Phil Roeder via Flickr under CC 2.0 License.
Calm down, Democrats, Donald Trump will not, as some zealous Maga types fantasise, take New York this election. Nor will he win over New Jersey, although the race may be closer there. California, as we New York natives would say: fuggedaboutit.
But the Trump surge in deep blue places, epitomised by successful rallies in the Bronx and the Jersey shore, reveals a great deal about shifting political allegiances. In New York, which Trump lost by 23 points in 2020, the former president is now within nine points. In New Jersey, where he lost by 16, the margin is down to five. If Trump forces Biden and the Democrats to deploy forces to these places, he is very likely to win a second term.
Democrats have ample reason to “freak out” about their incoherent and doddering leader. But they would also be well-served to realise that voters do not like to live in a failed state. After all, the deep blue bastions now lag behind the red states in nearly every conceivable category. Over the past year, for example, job growth in New York and New Jersey has lagged far behind that seen in red Florida, Texas, and South Carolina. Income growth is roughly 40% higher in these states than in New York and New Jersey, as well as other blue state laggards California, Illinois, and Oregon.
Most revealing is that many residents of these blue states are already voting with their feet. In the past decade, five southern states — Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina, along with Arizona in the West — exceeded the growth of all of the other (44) states and DC, according to the census. This pattern has accelerated since 2020, with southern states gaining 1.7 million people, while the other three census regions (Northeast, Midwest, and West) all had net domestic migration losses. In 2023, southern states accounted for 87% of all US population growth.
New York, New Jersey, and California are all losing residents, often to these same states. Last year, New York, California and Illinois lost more people to out-migration than any other states. Demographer Wendell Cox notes that the largest percentage loss of residents occurred in big core cities such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco.
In contrast, populations grew in sprawling areas such as Phoenix, Dallas, and Orlando. But although New York City had the biggest losses, an outstanding eight out of every 10 New York towns have also witnessed population declines since 2020. Overall, 90% of US growth last year was outside of big cities, the electoral base of the Democrats.
This red state surge is likely to continue given that red states have significantly higher birth rates. Over time, notes demographer Lyman Stone, this may constitute a “conservative fertility advantage”.
Indeed, many from the groups who add most to the baby supply — minorities, millennials and immigrants — are also moving to red states. In the past, both African Americans and immigrants headed to the West Coast, the Northeast and Chicago, where they felt welcome and saw opportunity. Now they are migrating instead to Dallas, Miami and even small towns in the Midwest. Los Angeles’s foreign-born population even declined over the past decade. Similarly, before the pandemic, affluent young professionals were heading to less expensive and congested cities in search of homes in places they could afford.
Read the rest of this piece at UnHerd.
Joel Kotkin is the author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class. He is the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and and directs the Center for Demographics and Policy there. Learn more at joelkotkin.com and follow him on Twitter @joelkotkin.
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr CC 2.0 License.
Americans are familiar with steep political divisions on issues like race, class, and gender. Perhaps less understood, but arguably more definitive, is the widening gap between the cognitive elites concentrated in big cities and the rest of the country. In our current “war against the masses,” to quote the late Fred Siegel, geography plays an increasingly dominant role.
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Gage Skidmore, used under CC-BY-SA 2.0 License